How can someone eat an entire elephant?

There's an old riddle that goes something like this: Q: How do you eat an entire elephant? A: One bite at a time! There's a certain amount of wisdom in that riddle. It's true that what seems like an impossibly big task could be accomplished in small enough increments. This is the principle that evolutionists apply when comparing macroevolution and microevolution.

I was online the other day when an evolutionist made this comment:

Because macroevolution is just microevolution repeated over long time periods, it's often been said that if you accept microevolution, but deny macroevolution, you are essentially saying that it's possible to walk from Los Angeles to San Francisco but impossible to walk from Los Angeles to New York.

So, I'd like to hear your best explanation as to why it's impossible to walk from Los Angeles to New York.

I didn't respond online because, frankly, too many of those forums are overrun with trolls. Instead, I thought I'd offer an explanation here.

This is lie #3 from my Ten Lies Evolutionists Tell series. At first hearing, the above argument sounds very persuasive. In fact, in the way it's worded here, I really can't argue with it. Obviously, if a person can walk a small distance, he could also walk a long distance if he has enough time. The problem with this argument is that it doesn't fairly represent what happens when animal populations “change.” There are at least three reasons why this analogy fails to explain how “microevolution” could make “macroevolution” possible over time.

THE CHANGE MUST BE IN ONE DIRECTION

Even the most famous examples of “evolution” usually involve slight variations back and forth around the mean. When Darwin observed the finches in the Galapagos, he noted the differences in the sizes of their beaks. In the 150 years since then, we've seen that beaks tend to be larger during periods of drought and smaller during periods of rain. In other words, after a century and a half of observation, there has been no accumulation of small changes. There has only been back and forth variations in response to back and forth changes in the environment.

For evolution to be possible, the changes must continuously be in one direction – like finch beaks only getting bigger. Back and forth changes over time means there are no net changes – not even microevolution. No matter how long he tries, a person cannot walk from LA to NY if he only walks in a circle!

THE CHANGE CANNOT HAVE A BOUNDARY

In another famous example of “evolution,” the peppered moth, a population of moths changed from mostly light, to mostly dark, to mostly light again in response to changes in the environment. You can see immediately that this is another example of back and forth variation like I just discussed in my first point. However, there is something else at work here.

Suppose the change did occur in only one direction. In the case of the peppered moths, for example, what if the population only continued becoming dark? Eventually, the entire population would become 100% dark and the change would stop. The change in the frequency of the dark allele could not increase any more. If anything, it could only decrease and the population would start becoming light again (see point number one).

Clearly a person cannot walk from Honolulu to NY!

THE CHANGE MUST BE ADDING SOMETHING

In order to turn a reptile into a mammal, you would have to add hair. The imagined first-living-thing didn't have hair. Neither did it have scales or even skin. It didn't have bones or blood or organs of any kind. For evolution to be possible, organisms would have to acquire new traits. To turn a microbe into a man, it would require millions of traits being continuously added generation after generation. “Changes” in a population, that don't add new features to the population, cannot allow a population to evolve.

There are species of fish that live in caves and are born without eyes. They are obviously descended from seeing fish but, in a dark environment where you can't see anything, having eyes is not an advantage. In fact, swimming around in the dark means you could bump into the wall and scratch your eyes which could lead to a deadly infection. In a cave where there is no light, a mutation that causes a fish to be born without eyes actually means the blind fish has an advantage over the seeing fish. This is what is called a “beneficial mutation.”

Beneficial mutations are an observed phenomenon. They convey some benefit to the host but it comes by way of losing something. For evolution to happen, populations have to acquire traits. You can't acquire traits by continuously losing traits – it doesn't matter how long it continues! Observing a population of fish being born without eyes does nothing to explain how eyes evolved in the first place.

You cannot turn a molehill into a mountain by continuously removing dirt. You can't grow a company by losing a little bit of money each year. You can't walk from LA to NY by walking away from NY!